Quinn, Interrupted
by freerangeegghead
Summary: Quinn is the perfect, All-American girl who's overcome a load of challenges and obstacles to become who she is. But what happens when a ghost from the past suddenly appears on your doorstep? Same 'verse as "Loop/Space/Learning/Opus" (LSLO) verse. Occurs during the events of Opus (occurs between Chapter 10 & 11 of Opus) . Drama, angst, friendship, family. A Quinn Fabray story.
1. Chapter 1

_**Summary: Quinn is the perfect, All-American girl who's overcome a load of challenges and obstacles to become who she is. But what happens when a ghost from the past comes and turns your life upside down? Same 'verse as "Loop/Space/Learning/Opus" (LSLO) verse. Occurs during the events of Opus. Drama, angst, friendship, family. Quinn-Santana/Quinn-Rachel friendship. Rated T.**_

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the prose.**_

* * *

I sit in one of the pews of a church a few blocks from the Gardens, in Brooklyn, a church I had happened on while I had been walking around the park, enjoying the scenery. It is mid-afternoon, in the middle of the week, and save for a few other churchgoers, the church is nearly empty.

The church is across the café, the café where I am supposed to meet someone in an hour or so and as the minutes tick by I grow even more nervous. Rachel and Santana are coming as well, bringing Blue with them, and I am glad for that.

To distract myself, I look around, inside the church.

The church is large, the ceiling high, the glistening, polished pews of dark mahogany wood, the polished tiled floors, the religious images and statues on the walls, depictions of the stations of the cross, the altar, the chalice, the confession booth, the organ and my favorite, the stained glass windows of red and blue and green and yellow, the midafternoon sunlight streaming through the windows and reflecting colored light on the floor, a prism of color that has always fascinated me, the first time I can remember seeing them, when I was four or five, carried on my father's shoulder, church stuffy and full and smelling of incense and sun, the priest droning on and on with words I couldn't understand.

I haven't been in church for a while. But lately I have been finding myself seeking the serenity and solace, silence and splendor of churches. I've always loved the pomp and ritual of church, the sacraments, the ceremonies, the Eucharist, the mass, communion, baptisms, and morbidly enough, funerals. I like the pomp and drama, like a long forgotten ancient ritual play that has lost most of the original meaning and intent, but all of the splendor. As it turns out, Miss Holiday, the substitute high school English teacher, once said drama and religion did go hand in hand once, the stories of the gods laid out in dramas for people to enjoy. I thought she was joking then, but later, going over my own books on the history of drama and literature, I realized she was right. The church is quite interesting, I am fascinated by how old and monolithic and rigid it is, how hierarchical and structured it is, everything scripted and rehearsed like a play. Everything about sin and suffering. Cheerios was a bit like that. Cheerios, which in and of itself, was a structured, hierarchical organization with pomp and rituals, predicated on Coach Sue and her torturing us and the ensuing suffering after. I sense a self-inflicted pattern here.

Anyway, the thing I liked the least was Sunday School, which was presided over by an overly perky blonde teacher with a flowery Sunday dress who spent each Sunday telling them Bible stories.

When I got too old for Sunday School, I was moved to the Youth Group, which I hated with as much passion as I hated Sunday School. The only good thing about it was meeting Santana Lopez one Sunday. Santana had been one of only a handful of teens in the classroom with tanned skin, and the only one with a permanent scowl who always seemed to be rolling her eyes at the teacher. I would never admit it to anyone, least of all Santana, but I liked Santana right away, and no matter what happened afterwards, boys, teen pregnancy, boyfriend stealing and swapping, car crashes, betrayals, nervous breakdowns, giving birth, _adolescence_, the one thing that I remember is that the first time I saw Santana Lopez I liked her. Whether I wanted to be Santana's friend right away was another thing altogether. I didn't know Spanish, but I was pretty sure Santana just used the words _"puta madre"_ in relation to either the teacher or whatever the teacher was saying, doing so with a trademark smirk on her face and an evil, mischievous glint in her eye. Of the very few Spanish words I would ever learn (Santana would sometimes do my and Brittany's Spanish homework), the one thing that I would remember is _"diabla"_ and _"maldita"_ because they perfectly describe Santana to a "T".

I haven't been to church regularly since sophomore year high school. Something about being pregnant at sixteen and being shunned by everyone, family, friends, classmates, your boyfriend, for having had sex before marriage, for feeling like you had a scarlet letter "A" branded on your chest for everyone to see, for being a pariah most of high school, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Some people come out of a trial like that stronger, their faith even more solid and unbreakable. But not me though. What happened to me sophomore year was the straw that broke the camel's back.

My therapist said the problem had always been that like most young people introduced to religion very young, I believed that my faith had universal jurisdiction, that the religious dogma I believed in, was infallible, but then when I had been faced with a true challenge - this same universal jurisdiction, dogma, infallibility, failed to save me. I think before the drama of the pregnancy, I had always thought of God as an abstraction, something intangible, an idea, much like perfection, that hadn't really figured much in my life. It was just something that I was born into, like being born into a WASP-y picture perfect family and so I hadn't really thought much about it until I was forced to look at the implications of my faith and how it would affect my life. That I couldn't even think about getting rid of the baby had made me start resenting the church. Resenting myself for being the true Catholic that I was, afraid of the consequences of going against this. Santana, the more practical, more nominal Catholic between the two of us, had, in fact, suggested getting rid of it, but we didn't actually have the money and didn't actually know anyone who _would_ do it. It was Ohio, after all. I had sat there, in the toilet, with the test kit turning blue in my hands and I could literally feel my life, my future, my plans, slowly slipping from me. I resented my helplessness, my inability to rise above it. At this time, I had tried to pray, like I'd never prayed before, but all the "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys" and everything else could do nothing to help me. My prayers went unanswered. I started to resent my faith even more. I stopped believing.

I stopped going to church. I thought Santana might have missed seeing me in church, but as it turned out, Santana had also stopped going to church as well.

I anxiously look at my watch, wondering if Santana and Rachel are on their way to the café. I feel anxious. I grow even more nervous. I actually need them there as well. I don't think I can go to that café alone.

I'd told Santana and Rachel who I was going to meet, and had actually planned on dropping by their house at the Gardens and maybe go to the café together, but Rachel might be busy, there are a lot of things going on with their life right now, and I had wanted to go around the city first, see its sights. Brooklyn isn't Lima, it has that jaded, cynical, rugged look to it, like your scruffy, long-lost brother with the ripped leather jacket and ripped jeans and grubby face who's had a hard life, always grim and brooding and serious. But Brooklyn isn't Albany either, and that's probably why after a few years in Albany, Santana and Rachel pack it in and go back to Brooklyn. I guess you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can't really take the New York out of the New Yorker. They've actually got the same place in the Gardens, which, Santana, with her six-figure income, had shrewdly kept for in case Rachel and their kids start missing Brooklyn. Albany didn't quite evoke that kind of excitement NYC did and now that Blue is older, Rachel can go back to work again. Music is Life is not going to run itself as well, even if Karofsky and Zee are there to help out. Although I guess it didn't matter where they are - as long as they're together. I've never seen Santana and Rachel this happy, like _truly_, genuinely happy and I think it has more to do with their relationship and marriage and Suzie and Blue. Funnily enough, I don't think Santana and Rachel have ever actually been truly happy in the past, until now, until they actually got together. But then again, I could probably say the same thing about myself. We all used to share that same basic inability to be happy, I think.

I sigh.

My mobile phone buzzes and I take it out and the ID, the image, reveal it to be Jeffrey, checking on me. I stop to stare at my husband's photo for a moment. It is a handsome photo of my husband, taken when he borrowed my phone and insisted, in his deep, baritone voice, that he do a self-portrait because apparently I was terrible at taking photos. He had had a new haircut then, blonde hair all trimmed and clean, and he'd posed for the camera with a slight, grim expression, almond-shaped dark green eyes squinting at the camera. He is sporting a day old stubble, and I have been trying to get him to shave it, but he insists it makes him look sexy. I remember rolling my eyes and telling him it's itchy, but looking at the photo of my husband, all broad shoulders and muscle, cheekbone and fuzz, wavy blonde hair and hazel green eyes, looking all broody and grim, he does look very handsome, if not a bit angsty, like a Chris Evans slash Chris Hemsworth combination, gorgeous and muscled and hunky. In real life, he's a very goofy, dorky, nerdy man, someone who enjoys collecting comic books, dressing up as either Thor or Captain America during Halloween, geeking out with my other equally dorky, nerdy friends, reading, surprising me with surprise dinners and flowers just because, taking me to restaurants with exotic cuisine to try out new dishes and doting on our now teenaged son, Aidan.

Jeffrey - Jeffrey is the antithesis to the kind of person I usually go for, meaning he is antithetical to Finn, Puck and Sam. He's from Boston, from an old family, his parents still together after so many years, his life basically a very comfortable uninterrupted humdrum life. Like most biracial children growing up, he's had his share of issues, but he seemed to have come out of it stronger.

Jeffrey's smart, well-read, cultured even, delighting Rachel with his very thorough knowledge of literature and vegetarian dishes, he'd majored in European Languages and studied Culinary Arts, and could go for hours on one tangent or another, as he and Rachel exchange ideas and debate the finer points of Russian literature. It's never pretentious, or conscious, seeing them talk together just looks like two very animated geeks excited to debate very geeky things.

Anyway, seeing Jeffrey and Rachel talking animatedly to each other - I think if Rachel weren't gay and completely smitten, head-over-heels in love with Santana, I'd have half a mind to start worrying, especially when they start to discuss Shakespearean plays and Broadway musicals as both Santana and I raise our eyebrows in mutual disgust and horror at how geeky our spouses are. Old habits die hard, I guess. But then, Rachel catches Santana looking at her with the same corny look of love on her face and Rachel smiles that smile I have come to recognize as a smile of happiness and love only reserved for Santana, I realize I need not have worried. Rachel adores Santana. That much is certain. That they love each other would be the understatement of the year.

As for Aidan, my son looks vaguely more and more Asian than Jeffrey every day, eyes almond-shaped and skin tan and body small for his age. Lately, like most teenagers, since he's hit adolescence, he's been quiet, subdued, and a bit secretive. However, as a teenager growing up Lima, Ohio, who hasn't knocked up anyone, gotten arrested for drunk driving or drug possession, beat up anyone or the many hundred and one things a teenager in Ohio could do, he isn't too bad. He is obsessed with computer games, comic books and school, but isn't interested in sports, joining clubs, music or singing, or any other extracurricular activities that involve physical exertion or following authority, choosing instead to lock himself in his room, or spend hours in front of the television or in the kitchen, or hanging out with his friends who all seem to stop and stare at me when I enter the room. I'd actually overheard one of his friends say, "Whoa! Your mom's hot, Aidan!" to which Jeffrey, who had happened to enter the room just as I was leaving it, says, in what I feel is a proud, vaguely casually possessive tone, "Careful, that one's taken. Find your own hot blonde, boys!"

I smile now, thinking of my family. I briefly type a reply, telling him I am safe and sound and in Brooklyn and jokingly saying I haven't been mugged yet and Jeffrey replies with a smiley face and a sappy, unabashed "I love you" that, despite myself, make me smile. I miss him. I miss Aidan. Remembering Aidan reminds me of something else entirely and I take a deep breath, try to calm myself down so as to keep from having an anxiety attack. Or worse, another breakdown.

I should be, of course, back in Lima now, taking care of my own child and my husband, but I needed to get away, and I'd been meaning to do so, but the work at the restaurant, coupled with the million and other things that a family and a business kept getting in the way and I'd kept putting off getting away until now. I'd been determined to come, I hadn't seen Santana in ages, and I'd wanted a change of scenery, and Brooklyn was as good a change as any. Jeffrey had already gotten used to these sudden urges that I have to go somewhere, and it is a testament to how much he loves me that he trusts me enough to let me be. There have been a number of times in the past that I have disappeared, sometimes for a day or a couple of days and I come back after, looking renewed and refreshed. Jeffrey would always welcome me back, with open arms, although I know Jeffrey already knows that when I disappear I've probably gone off to my best friend or gone off to the city and will come back soon.

Plus there was someone I needed to meet. Someone I owed something to and I needed to come, before I lost my nerve.

I had actually spent the better part of the day, just walking around downtown, until the time came to head back here and wait for the time to come.

Jeffrey never asks me where I go off to, and I never offer any explanation. It is one of the many quirks I had that Jeffrey, trooper that he is, had had to put up with, and never complained about. This time though, Jeffrey knows where I am. He knows I am meeting Santana and Rachel. What he doesn't know though is who else I am meeting. But I am confident as always that he will understand. He always does.

Jeffrey was never one to be controlling or possessive or jealous, easily the most trusting, open-minded, intelligent man I have ever met, insisting that I should go off and hang out with friends, go on vacations by myself if I want, get some me-time, always ready to take care of our son when needed. It is one of the things I love about Jeffrey. That and his mother, who dotes on Aidan and I like nobody's business.

If someone had told me when I had been sixteen, pregnant, homeless and disowned by my parents, ignored by friends and kicked out of the Cheerios, survive a car crash, that I would eventually get my happy ending, a happy ending of my own design, of my own choosing, undefined by others and others definition of what happiness meant, I would have laughed in their faces.

Nothing during that time had indicated I would live happily ever after.

Nothing.

And I am thankful every minute of every day that I had been able to pull through it.

But just when I think everything is going well, something, _someone_, appears to derail whatever gains I have made in my life.

That someone is Beth Corcoran.

It had been just another ordinary day for me.

My boys had gone off to play some baseball in the park, one of Jeffrey's many failed attempts to make Aidan like sports. Jeffrey isn't really into sports as well, and only goes to the gym regularly. But he believes sports is a manly, fatherly thing to do, and so he attempts to do so with his son. It's highly entertaining watching him try to get Aidan interested in sports. Santana and I combined are probably more athletic than Jeffrey is. Nobody really appreciates how much work goes into cheerleading. Anyway, that day, Aidan had sighed deeply, tossed his head, run his hand over his long, brown hair and grudgingly followed his father, mumbling about wanting to play the latest Mass Effect video game - an obsession that Sam had introduced to him. I had smiled at the boys bickering and when they had kissed and said goodbye to me and rode off in Jeffrey's Toyota SUV, there is a silence that settles in their wake and I sigh and puts the dishes in the washer, tidy up the kitchen, clear up the mess my boys had made, start the washing machine, making a face at my son's recently discovered penchant for using the same Marvel and D.C. shirts for days on end, and after tossing his clothes into the machine, and turning it on, I start to vacuum the living room.

I am even nowhere close to finishing the housework when the doorbell rings.

I think nothing of it, as I turn off the vacuum cleaner and go to the door.

When I open the door, I see a young woman with long honey blonde hair, and sea green eyes, clutching the strap of her backpack with one hand, as the other hand nervously fidgets with her tee shirt and skinny jeans, I shifts nervously from one foot to the next.

I take one look at her, look into green eyes, eyes as green as mine, hair as blonde as mine, cheekbones and lips completely like mine that I know, instantly and unequivocally, without her needing to introduce herself, that it is Beth, Beth Corcoran.

What I do afterward, I know, is inexcusable.

* * *

**_A/N:_**

**_Thanks for reading and reviewing. I know I should be updating the other stories, but work (and studies) keeps getting in the way and I've run into a brick wall, so I ended up writing this instead. Apologies. Will update on the others soon, as soon as the brick wall comes down._**

**_Quinn has always been my favorite character, for a lot of different reasons. I think her story has always been compelling but somewhere along Season 2, the creators didn't know what to do with her and her story went to hell, but Quinn Fabray has stayed amazingly resilient and still fascinating. Anyway, this story came about because of kutee, kickangel and my beta, DragonsWillFly - who, at one point or another, had asked me for a Quinn story (well, kutee asked for Beth) so. This story had been in the old noodle since last year - I just didn't know where to put it. But the opportunity presented itself and now here we are._**

**_This will be short - it won't take five chapters, even. Anyway, would love to hear what you think about this story._**

**_Special thanks to the inspiration from David Lodge and his novel, "Therapy" (cracking good five pence/ten cent novel!), an article on Einstein I'd been reading and drshebloggo's insights on Glee and its characters._**


	2. Chapter 2

I know I shouldn't have done it.

And one of the reasons I haven't gone straight to The Gardens now is because even though I am not sure Santana had already talked about it to Rachel, I am afraid that maybe Santana has and I am not sure whether I can deal with Rachel's judgmental, accusing looks, especially as Rachel's biological mom, Shelby Corcoran, is my daughter's adoptive mother, making Rachel and I almost pseudo-related.

Beth had caught me off-guard.

Beth had stood on my front door step, with this nervous, fearful, hopeful look on her face, asking me, apprehensively if "Miss Quinn Fabray is home" and as my heart starts to thud against my chest, I say, "Yes, I'm Quinn Fabray, well, Quinn Fabray-Murray now", Beth stops, looks me up and down, bites her lower lip, and with awe in her voice, says, "Wow, you're much prettier in person than you are in pictures."

I knit my eyebrows then, not sure what to say, but suspecting already, from looking at this young woman, that my world is about to be turned upside down, that it is a long-lost offspring that I had given away when I was barely sixteen. But I swallow and ask, flatly, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but who are you?"

The young woman takes a deep breath, runs her hand on her long, blonde hair, rocks on the balls of her feet and says, hesitantly, pausing awkwardly,"Umm, I don't know if you know me, or recognize me, but…my name is Beth…Beth Corcoran? And I was told I'd find you here? You gave me away when you were sixteen and I was adopted by my mom, Shelby Corcoran and she doesn't know I'm here, and I just wanted to meet you and…"

I don't hear the rest of what Beth has to say, because there is a cold that creeps from my gut and goes into my voice and I say, curtly and coldly to Beth, "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you are talking about. Don't ever come here again."

And I slam the door on Beth's face.

* * *

I run through the many ways in which I could have handled that situation, but the fact of the matter was that I panicked. I hadn't known how to deal with it. I wish I had handled it better, but all of that cannot be undone anymore.

I know I have done some irreparable damage when a noticeably upset Shelby Corcoran calls me later, demanding to know what I had done - Beth had come home visibly distraught, crying uncontrollably and had refused to tell Shelby anything. I had been speechless, unable to say anything, and there was silence on the other line, before Shelby says, "You know what? I don't want to know what you did or said that would make my daughter come home so upset after seeing you and Puck. She didn't even tell me she was going to Lima, kept it a secret from me, thought maybe I would get mad. And I should be mad. You know why? Because of all the people I'd expect to treat Beth like this, I'd expected you to be the last person to do so. I'd told her to keep away from you and Puck in the first place. I'd tried to shield her from all this, but I thought maybe you wouldn't hurt her. That maybe you'd grown up and would have some semblance of decency when the child you gave away when you were sixteen shows up wanting to get to know you. And I've never wanted her hurt. _Ever_. I'm very disappointed in you and very upset at whatever it is you did. Stay away from my daughter. For your sake and mine, but most of all for Beth." And I hear a click on the other line, and I stand there, phone receiver on hand, staring out, shocked for what seems like ages, before Jeffrey comes in and asks me, concern etched on his face, "Honey, are you okay? You've been standing there for ages." I snap out of my reverie and smile at my husband, and it is only when I take a deep breath and put a hand on my chest do I realize that for a while there, listening to Shelby on the other line, that I'd actually stopped breathing. I tell my husband it is nothing and join him and my son for dinner.

So Beth had visited Puck, too, and had probably received the same reception. Puck lives in Ohio as well, just outside Lima. I am not sure if he's married, but I do know his pool cleaning business is thriving and that he'd added gardening and landscape design to his repertoire, expanding his business to attract more customers. He hasn't struck it rich, but he gets by. I want to call him, but I've never really kept in touch with him like I did with Santana, Sam, Mike, Tina, Mercedes, Kurt, Karofsky and of course, Santana, and by extension, Rachel. Santana has been there through thick and thin, even though I have done my share of betrayals and bad things to her, as Santana has to me as well, especially when we were young.

I take a deep breath now, feeling the anxiety and panic crawling up my chest. I take a few deep breaths, closing my eyes, finding my center, imagining happy places, letting my mind come back to the present, concentrate on the now. I'd found this little mental exercise a little bit ridiculous in the past, but I find that it is particularly useful and helps prevent the kind of incident I'd had when I was in college.

* * *

I hadn't known how it started.

Maybe it started when I was in Yale.

I was a freshman, and just like Santana, had been doing pre-law. Santana had said it was perfect for me, I had the fine art of blackmail down and that would come in handy when I became a corporate lawyer.

I was a freshmen barely surviving Yale and I had a lot on my plate. I had snooty professors to impress, classmates to impress, a roommate who didn't particularly take to me, classes to review for. I was finding that people weren't particularly impressed with Lima, Ohio, or me, and where before, I had reigned supreme as head bitch goddess of McKinley, now I find that I am at the bottom of the social pyramid, except nobody cared about popularity here, people cared about your brains and grades and whether you could eruditely talk about American foreign policy in the Middle East, the implications of China opening its doors to free trade and whether it is possible for a black woman or a Latina or any woman of color to sit in the White House anytime soon. Whenever I entered a classroom, or a house, or wherever, students would look me up and down, raise an eyebrow my way and turn away. I remember, not for the nth time, why I'd insisted to my father that I study in Yale. It had always been my plan. But nobody thought I could actually get into Yale. But it had been something I had been working on for years, much like Rachel's lifelong plan to get to Broadway, except nobody actually believed I could make it in Yale. Not my father, who had complained that it was too expensive. Not my mother, who thought it might be too much for me. Not my high school friends who thought I didn't belong there. Not classmates and complete strangers who believed in the same. Everyone was waiting for me to fail. Everyone _expected_ me to fail. Everyone, that is, but Santana and Brittany.

I hadn't known when it started.

Or how precisely it started.

But the left side of my body, particularly the hip, thigh, knee and leg would sometimes ache, especially during the cold months and I'd tried, in vain, to make the pain go away, first with surgery, next with therapy, and last, with painkillers, but the pain wouldn't go away.

The pain would come, at the most inopportune times - shooting up to my hip when I'm limping to class, or limping to the library, or to the cafeteria, or in the morning, right after I've woken up and stretching on my bed. The limp would never go away and would always be a boon to my existence. But I learn to live with it, learn to deal, like I do with the other things that come in my life. The pain shoots up to my hip and I am reduced to tears, writhing in agony on my bed, gritting my teeth, the pain so severe I sometimes feel like I would die from it.

I'd started to take more painkillers, to take the pain away. I'd been taking painkillers since after the accident, and long after I'd started walking again, because the painkillers also had the added side effect of giving me this unnatural high, this buzz that would be with me for the rest of the day, and it made every day at Yale more bearable. I honestly can't tell you what my freshman year in Yale was, I'd probably been too hopped up on painkillers to notice anything.

It hadn't been that hard to start taking painkillers on a recreational basis. Sometimes, I would take some Valium, pilfered from my mother's medicine cabinet, which my mother was prescribed right after the divorce. While the divorce was empowering, it had also made her a bit lost. I guess when you're institutionalized that long, even when it had been abusive and unhealthy, you'd develop an anxiety over it, because it's all you'd ever known.

Anyway, so it hadn't been hard to transition from painkillers to trying out a bit of weed, and later, meth, fooling myself into thinking illegal drugs would help me forget the pain even more. By this time I'd been taking more and more painkillers because the usual dosage wasn't working anymore. I remember being in a party and somebody handing me something to smoke, or snort, I don't remember, and me seeing something, a dark phantom shape lurking through the haze and crowd of other students, staring at me with bright, shining eyes. I'd remembered later that it reminded me a little of those creatures in the Harry Potter books and movies. Of course, I had probably been high at that point, and I had been so stressed and anxious I had wanted to try something to calm me down, to fit in, and gave in to quasi-friends cheering me on as I inhaled the substance into my system.

And then the dreams started.

Or more accurately, the dreams I've been having, intermittent dreams that came and went from high school onwards, dreams I'd ignored and hoped I would outgrow as I grew older, actually increased in frequency and intensity.

Dreams where I drown, or fall off cliffs, or get stabbed, and most horribly, get hit by a truck, over and over and over again. I hadn't noticed these dreams before, or maybe I had, but had chosen to ignore it.

The dreams got so bad when I was at Yale I sometimes was afraid to sleep, afraid I'd see myself in my mind's eye dying over and over and over again.

I'd go for days without sleep, eyes bloodshot, body tired, stumbling in a daze through classes and lectures and study group, the words, the ideas, the concepts, not really getting through me. By then, I'd developed insomnia, and I would lie, on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the anxiety creep in, feeling like the night, the darkness, the _world_, is closing in, shadows on the walls taking shape and wanting to claim me for itself and the fear climbs up from my gut all the way to my chest and to my throat and I find herself so profoundly terrified nothing, not even my roommate telling me it's okay, there's nothing there, could make it all go away.

In a few months, even the roommate gives up and moves to a different dorm, just to get away from me and the talking that begins to freak her out.

Before midterms freshman year, I am barely passing all my classes. All of it, except my psych 101 class, and that was because I liked the class and the professor, a handsome, thirty five year old, idealistic genius of a man with wavy dark hair, and sharp cheekbones who was purportedly a genius who'd finished college at twelve or something, and finished graduate school at eighteen and was the youngest professor to have tenure at Yale. I was impressed at his credentials and flattered by the attention. The fact that he was married didn't bother me in the least, and in fact, had made him even more of interesting in my eyes. One dinner date had turned into two, and by the third or fourth date we were making out in his office, or in a hotel, in the outskirts of the town, so we wouldn't be caught. He made me feel special. Made me feel like a woman. An adult. He said his wife hadn't touched him in three years, and that they were getting a divorce, which, in my naiveté, I hadn't realized, meant he was just bored and he was never really leaving his wife and he just wanted a bit of fun.

Of course, after that, one day he just didn't seem attracted to me anymore. Or maybe it was really just for the semester. In a few months, it was going to end and there was fresh meat coming in with a new one. Either way, before the semester ended, the professor had been acting like he didn't know or even care about me and would go out of his way to avoid me or even talk to me.

It hadn't lasted the whole semester. Just a couple of months at most, I remember.

And when Santana had mocked and insulted me about my relationship with the professor, that time we both came home for Thanksgiving, it hit too close to home and I had slapped Santana and we had almost come to blows, I had felt it then, this singular rage, this need to pick up a stool and beat Santana senseless with it.

I suppose it had something to do with the fact that the sex had proven to be tedious, boring, a chore, for me at least, and as my sexual experience had only been with Puck (having a baby at sixteen deeply traumatizes you, I think, and I hadn't actually had any sort of intimacy with anyone after that, save for one), I was wholly and embarrassingly inexperienced for a brilliant psych professor who is fascinated with Kinsey and his ilk. I had difficulty climaxing and it proved even more taxing especially since he didn't seem to have the same problem, and always, when it was finished, he would roll away from me, satisfied and spent, and in a few seconds, he would be asleep, while I lie there, staring up at the ceiling, lying there unsatisfied and unhappy and I spend hours debating whether I should get dressed and leave, or turn on the light and read one of my texts or study, or get some coffee or something, and then I fall asleep around five AM and then I'd barely fallen asleep before he is nudging me for a bit of morning sex. Sometimes, we'd end up having sex on his couch, in his office and that felt as unpleasant as doing it in his home. Once, I met his wife, and I was flabbergasted. She was beautiful, tall, Greek or Italian, I don't remember, but she spoke French and German and Italian and classical Greek and Latin and I stood there, being introduced to her by her husband and growing even more inadequate and insecure by the second.

So, yes, even the sex had become tiresome and not at all something I actually wanted to do on a regular basis. Especially with him. Actually, there was a study in the UK that said, about eighty percent of British people would rather go without sex than go without their mobile phones. I can understand why. At that point, whatever interest I'd ever have for sex would have been wiped out.

Except for that one time with Santana when we'd seen each other after Thanksgiving. We'd both been home for Mr. Schuester's wedding but it had been called off at the last minute, to everyone's eternal consternation and annoyance - we thought it was ridiculous to have called everyone to a wedding that would have been called off at the last minute, but as the reception hall and party had already been paid, everyone decided to have a good time anyway. And there was an open bar. Who could go wrong with an open bar?

Santana and I had both gotten ridiculously drunk that night, and we were both feeling very drunk and solicitous and generous and we got as far as the hotel room before Santana realizes where she is and she stops and says, stepping away from me, "Quinn, I'm sorry. I can't do this. You're my best friend. I… I can't…"

And then she turns and runs and I don't hear from her again for a long time. I wasn't really into it, to tell you the truth. I was never really into it. I wasn't really thinking about how that would screw up our friendship, but evidently she had. I hadn't thought of it that way then, though. All I can think of is Santana turning me down - a veritable rejection in a long line of rejections for Quinn Fabray.

Maybe it started there.

Santana rejecting me. Like my professor rejecting me. Like Finn rejecting me. Like Puck rejecting me. Like my father rejecting me. Like everyone else rejecting me.

I'd never had much luck with relationships.

Sam was nice, but he did call me a rich, white, privileged girl with rich, white girl problems, which was a very reductive way of looking at my life. Sam has, since then, grown and of all the high school guys I've known, he's the one I've kept in touch with the most.

Finn and I hardly were ever on equal footing, like Finn and Rachel were hardly ever on equal footing as well. I bossed Finn around when we were dating, took advantage of his naiveté, or as Santana would describe it, his stupidity, and I had been terribly unkind to him. But then again, he had done the same to me as well, cheating on me with Rachel, then cheating on Rachel with me. And we wouldn't even have found out had it not been for Santana, closeted unhappy bitch that she was then, giving Finn mono to expose his deceit. Mostly I think I was the popular, perfect Christian head cheerleader with the equally popular and perfect but dim quarterback boyfriend. He was a status boyfriend. We went out because I felt like it was the right thing to do, it was the role we were supposed to play. I know I may have cared for him then, like he may have cared for me, but that seems like such a long time ago, and so many things have happened since.

And Puck - well, Puck had this permanent predatory, lascivious, date rape-y look, this permanent fixation on older women and this inability to get women to bed unless they're drunk. It would take me years of therapy and Dr. Sissy Spacey to realize that one of the reasons for the depression I had is that first intimate experience I had had was with Puck - which, considering I was drunk, was hardly consensual. I was not in control of my body. That decision was taken from me once Puck gave me wine coolers and for a time, I resented him for that. I _loathed_ him for that. Because unlike me, he didn't have to live with the feeling of failure, of guilt, of remorse, of confusion and anxiety, once the child is taken away from you.

I thought I'd forgotten all of that, but it's surprising how all of those feelings come bubbling to the surface, unannounced, when the baby is now a fully-grown woman who shows up at your doorstep unannounced one fine day.

Or maybe it started earlier. Senior year in high school. When I survived that horrific car crash and I'd been confined to a wheelchair junior year and I had never felt more useless and invisible than when I had been confined in a wheelchair.

Or maybe it started even earlier. Sophomore year. Cheerios. Glee Club. Celibacy Club.

I was the President of the Celibacy Club who was pregnant at 16, with my boyfriend's best friend's baby, the same boyfriend's best friend who was almost sort of kind of dating my pseudo best friend, Santana Lopez. I was a sinner, the Daddy's Girl who was an eternal disappointment to my father. And I got kicked out of every club, got kicked out of her own home, was homeless for a while.

Everything that came to define me - how I defined myself - was peeled off. The things that I loved turned on me. My family. My status. My power. My control.

And for the longest time, I struggled with emotions that followed my fall from grace. I hated my father for kicking me out. And yet I knew I still loved him. How could I not? Whatever happened, he would always, always be my father. I hated my mother for being so spineless, and yet I loved her still and when she finally stood up to my father, I was a mixture of sadness and happiness and pride.

For the longest time, I felt that whatever happened afterwards was penance for previous sins.

I don't know.

Or maybe it started in middle school.

I was the fat girl from middle school. I remember sometimes, how, during that time, the other kids, mostly the boys, would bully me, make fun of me. They'd joke about how they were wondering how they could turn my mass into energy, because as the science teacher had claimed, even a small amount of mass can be turned into a lot of energy. E=mc2. Later I looked it up, and I realize how idiotic they were, they couldn't even bully me correctly. Energy is mass times the squared speed of light. This equation shows that mass can be turned into energy. Because the speed of light is such a high number even a small amount of mass can be turned into a lot of energy. This means, for example, that there is enough energy in a glass of water to give power to a state like Ohio for maybe a whole week. The scientists who started the Manhattan Project in World War II had wondered how to get the energy out of the mass - but this same equation led to the building of the atomic bomb. The first bomb only had point six grams of mass but scientists turned it into enough energy to destroy a whole city. I don't discuss these things with classmates though. I made the mistake once of talking excitedly about it to some kids in middle school and they started laughing at me and calling me a "geek" and a "nerd" and adding "fat" before it and it hurt. Later, as I grew older, people would start calling me "pretentious" and that made me stop talking about all these things altogether. Santana had picked up on this "people bully the smart, different kids" and so she'd tried not to look as smart as the others as well.

I've always liked science. Science and Math made sense. Like music made sense to Rachel. Like loving women made sense to Santana. Like cats and dolphins and ducks made sense to Brittany. Santana insists Math doesn't make sense, but I know she's as good with her classes as I am. Santana, Brittany and I had to maintain above average GPAs in order to stay in Cheerios and we all busted our butts to stay in the Cheerios.

Anyway, science had laws and theories and explained things in a very rational way, unlike religion. I always struggled between my fascination with science and my religion. The Big Bang Theory versus the Creation Theory. Evolution versus Genesis. Cold, hard, facts versus miracles.

Science fascinated me though. Scientists fascinated me. Einstein, particularly, fascinated me. Einstein thought that space and time were closely related to each other. He thought that there were not three dimensions to objects but four - the fourth one was time. Other scientists, who continued his work, claimed that it was possible to travel in time, into the past and the future. Scientists thought black holes might be tunnels that could take you back and forth into time. These things fascinated me, and Santana, closet geek that she was, was also fascinated with this. And Brittany - well, she was open to these kinds of discussions, would go off on tangents of "what-ifs", like after we've watched a movie like "Back to the Future" and it would have her thinking about stuff like, could we really travel in time? Could we change our past? Could we change our future?

I remember thinking about this when I found out I was pregnant. All I could think of then was how I wished I could turn back time and hadn't had sex with Puck. I remember thinking what if I just threw myself off a building or something. And then that makes me think about this theory Einstein had - about how objects follow curved paths and get attracted by the gravity of an object, how time would pass more slowly if you are close to a very large object like a planet and how if you were on a plane, the clock on a plane would go faster than a clock at an airport because the plane is farther away from the earth. I wondered once if time would really go faster, if a building would be far away enough from earth that if I hurl myself away from the building, I would die a quick, painless death.

Mostly I close my eyes at night and wake up thinking it's all a dream, except every day, my belly grows bigger and my clothes gradually don't fit me anymore and I realize it's not a dream and this deep, deep anxiety takes hold of me and I find myself crying. At first I think it's just the baby hormones, but I think the depression and anxiety had been there even before. The pregnancy magnified it.

I wished then I hadn't slept with Puck because I was feeling insecure, like I always did.

But I knew of course thinking about turning back time is stupid. And useless. And pointless.

The one thing you need to know about fat girls is that they are insecure. And that behind every fat girl is a thin girl screaming to get out. But that once that thin girl is let out, she never really feels thin. She's still always the fat girl on the inside who feels like a fraud, a fake.

Once, my former therapist, Dr. Sissy Spacey, asks me to write down the positive and negative things I see about myself. She also encourages me to write in a diary. I think it's all a piece of crap, but I acquiesce to whatever she is saying, because even though I find psychiatry just a bunch of crap, I did want to find out why I was the way I was. She'd gone out of her way to emphasize that she wasn't a psychiatrist per se, but a Cognitive Behavior Therapist, specializing in rational emotive therapy - the explanation to it escaping me now. The crux of the matter though is the fact that rather than waste too much time on why I am the way I am, she had wanted me to overcome whatever depression and anxiety I had at that moment. Anyway, I had never paid attention, but suffice it to say that when she asked me to write down positive and negative things about myself, I find myself writing much more on the negative column rather than on the positive column.

I hate my skin, for one. I think it's too pale and _white_. I hate my nose, for another. I'd had a deviated septum growing up, exactly what happened to Rachel junior year. Except I had mine fixed, and though I'd had surgery for it, I still feel like the fat insecure girl with the ugly, almost bulging nose. I hate my teeth. I hate my hair. It's so blonde. So stereotypically blonde. So ripe for the blonde jokes I almost always heard growing up. I hate how ordinary my face is. I hate how unspecial it is. I hate my stretch marks. I hate how large and dark my nipples are, especially after the first time I gave birth. Pregnancy and motherhood changes your body in fundamental ways, and the depression I go through after, a depression that I couldn't put a name on, a depression that screamed I just had a baby, and that had to _mean_ something, that probably meant _everything_, but nobody, not even Mr. Schuester, who shrugs it off and tells me off, or Coach Sue, or the principal or the other teachers or my friends, or even me, recognize it for what it is,and I go through high school being maniacally happy one moment and profoundly depressed the next, without understanding why. The pregnancy had changed my life in a major way, and my body, my self is never the same after, and each time I looked at the mirror then, I hardly recognized who I was. I'd cut my hair short, dyed my hair pink, grew my hair, wore different clothes, started to smoke, to see if I could bring it back to what it used to be but I couldn't. Never had I felt so ordinary than after I'd given birth. And I've always felt ordinary. Next to Santana, with her flawless permanent tan, her full, round, surgically augmented breasts, her pouty lips, her sexy voice, her very self that oozed charisma and _sex_, and Brittany, who went around school with such a carefree, devil-may-care attitude, and her mad dancing skills, I felt, for lack of a better word, inadequate. I've developed a limp on my left leg since that bad car accident I'd been in and that made the insecurity worse. The horrific car accident I'd been through - which everyone had conveniently forgotten, except for Brittany and Santana, but especially Santana, who'd offered to carry my books and backpack for me, even before I started walking again, and right after, making Brittany and me tease her for being such a gentleman and a chivalrous knight-in-shining-armor, which in turn made Santana, who'd always claimed she never blushes, blush so red all the way to her neck and chest that Brittany and I would laugh so hard that she would drop my books on the hallway with a thud and stalk off, making us laugh harder, before Brittany is running after her and holding her and apologizing and telling her not to be mad anymore, we were just joking. And I look at Santana and Brittany talking to each other in the hallway and I feel a pang of jealousy, _envy_, because one of the things that I've always been jealous about was what those two had, like no matter what happened, they would always, always come back to each other, they would always, always have each other, no matter what. And I've never felt that kind of devotion and loyalty from _anyone_. But Santana had always been lucky with the ladies. Rachel is as devoted and loyal as Brittany will ever be, or even more so, and equally as doting and loving. A lot of people would kill to have what Santana had with Brittany, what Santana has now with Rachel. But Santana had found it so easily. Twice.

Anyway, I find out Santana is gay freshmen year, in high school, one random day in the showers, right after gym, when everyone is stripping off their clothes and Santana, for lack of a better word, had been staring at the parade of bare, naked flesh walking around her, looking uncomfortable and scared and rooted to the spot. And after that, when she'd started dating boys in earnest, choosing the hottest, hunkiest, _manliest_, most virile high school jocks had made me realize that in some ways we were alike, Santana and I. I feel like it must have been horrifying, for her, to have to sleep with guys to make the gay go away, or make herself straight, and I guess that was the reason she hadn't been particularly upset Puck had slept with me when they were sort of dating. And I hadn't felt upset when Finn had slept with her. For some strange reason, I felt these things meant nothing to her. Were perhaps torture to her. She would never have that with Brittany, or Rachel. With Brittany she was devoted, patient, never losing her legendary mercurial temper. Though neither she nor Rachel would never ever tell me when or where or how they even found the time to hook up in between Rachel's very pressing diva-in-the-making schedule and Santana's very punishing lawyer schedule, I know that however it happened between her and Rachel, must have meant more than all the boys Santana had claimed to have slept with in high school, because she loved Rachel enough to move to New York for her, to marry her, to _be_ with her. Like me, you see, Santana can be all bravado, all bark and no bite. All terrified little closeted girl, afraid to be outed.

Anyway, that day, in the shower, after gym, I realize we had a lot more in common than anything.

And through all the things that we would do each other in high school, the one thing we never do, is out each other. She would always be the only one who never blabbed about my pregnancy and I was the only one who never outed her for being gay.

I also have a singing voice that I'm less than enamored with. When I sing, I feel so nasal, so inadequate, so dissatisfied with myself, my nasal voice always seeming to pale in comparison to Santana's strong mezzo soprano, or Rachel's annoying high soprano, or Mercedes' powerful diva voice or Tina's more than adequate one. I only felt confident when I sang with Mike or Finn, because those two couldn't sing if their life depended on it, and sometimes, those early years of Glee, I just whispered or mouthed the words, pretending I was singing. I didn't have any dreams of making it on Broadway, like Rachel, when I joined Glee. I don't think Santana and Brittany had dreams of that, too. And Puck only joined because Mr. Schue had found a way to recruit new members (his recruit-in-the-showers technique grosses me out to no end), and I don't think he had dreams of making it either. We weren't as good as Rachel, although Santana does have a beautiful voice and Puck also has a killer voice. Or rather, I wasn't as good as Rachel. I never was good enough for anything anyway.

It didn't help that I had a father who demanded perfection in every way, a mother who wasn't allowed to have a say in anything, a cheerleading coach who never found anything remotely positive about her cheerleaders, a Glee Club adviser who was only good for writing the theme music of the week on the board whenever we had Glee practice and failed miserably when it came to addressing student problems, an obsessive compulsive guidance counselor who's idea of helping students was providing them with a pamphlet, and other teachers who were too wrapped up in their own drama, to actually recognize that of their students.

I had been painted this picture perfect idea of what a good Christian girl should be: chaste, obedient, submissive, _perfect_, an ideal no one, not even I, Quinn Fabray, could ever live up to, an ideal I would spend her youth trying to live up to, to please her father, her family, then as I grew older, to please teachers, friends, _boyfriends_, and it got to the point where it got harder to live up to it, until one day, I had cracked, and revealed herself to be the imperfect, flawed human being who, long after I'd weight and gotten beautiful and thin and glamorous, will always feel like that fat little girl nobody would ever, could ever love.

I felt this even more strongly in college.

Dr. Spacey has said, after she's read my list, that I seem like such a negative person. I swallow the retort begging to be let out, because obviously I've always known I am a negative person, but sometimes, you need to pay someone to tell you exactly what you need to know about yourself.

Dr. Spacey has said this dissatisfaction stems from a clear unhappiness on my part, on my appearance, my need for that elusive perfection, which, by its very definition, is tenuous. And I remembering trying to defend myself, because I can remember a time when I _had_ been happy. I wasn't always unhappy. I think I may have even been content. But somewhere along the way, I'd forgotten how to be happy, I'd forgotten how to live, and I was just existing and I'd lost my way and couldn't go back to how it was.

See, that's the thing with therapy and analysis. The deeper you go in, the more you learn things, the more you get in too deep - it's like the piece of thread that you pull at, which unravels everything until all that is left is…_nothing_.

So I was feeling profoundly, deeply unhappy. And I had been feeling the unhappiness grow in intensity and duration from sophomore year onwards. I could feel myself going into a downward spiral to darkness, like an airplane discovering midflight that one of the engines have failed, so now it's just freefalling in the air, down, down, down into the sea.

And I realize, one day, in front of the bathroom mirror where I spend inordinate amounts of time staring at myself, wondering who this bloodshot, gaunt person with the eye bags and the unhappy face is, that I don't want to fight anymore, that I am giving up, that it's just too much work being who I am, that I decide to just stop. To just give it all up. I contemplate suicide, but I am Catholic and suicides go to hell, and I didn't want to give my family that pain. Yes, I am Catholic through and through.

Most people who are sick, or in need of help, usually know they need help. Sometimes, we just don't want to bother getting help. Sometimes you're just in too deep you can't dig your way out of it and it just seems much better to stay where you are, to just continue being stuck, because going out of your comfort zone, that's terrifying.

But then, one time, during a party, someone actually O.D.s on crystal meth and I am there when the girl dies, and I am there when they try to revive her, so unsuccessfully, and I am there when people start freaking out and screaming and just not knowing what to do and I am there when the people come to put her in a body bag, face and body all pale and lifeless and cold and there is the somber flashing red lights of the ambulance and the emergency people all grim and efficient and impassive and I think to myself, coming down from my high, but still drunk from the bottle of Jack we had all been drinking, that I needed some help.

I finish the semester at Yale without flunking, take a few months off and check myself into a mental health and substance abuse facility just outside Boston.

* * *

At first it's hard to see what the problem really is. Some mental health professionals would just call this simple anxiety, or just depression, or some PTSD bullshit.

I like Dr. Sissy Spacey because she posits the idea that maybe I'm having some kind of existential angst.

I looked "angst" up in the dictionary once and find out it's a German word - because of course it is, it's such a serious psycho-physical condition that there is no English equivalent for the word and we have to borrow the German one. I'm fascinated with words, with words from other languages. I used to spend hours looking up words in the dictionary and memorizing them. It was a habit I developed from middle school. I'd look at the root word, the origin, when it was first used, denotation and connotation and things like that. The foreign words are always more fascinating. Somebody once said to speak another language is to have another soul. I guess Santana would have a second soul. And Mike. And Tina. I wonder about us, me and Rachel and Finn and Puck and Mercedes and Artie and Sam and the others - how we didn't have second souls because we didn't speak a second language. I guess if you spoke another language, it makes you see the world a bit differently, makes your mind more open. Rachel, stage mom that she is, believes a kid who has a second language is twice as smart as the other kids. Then Sam pipes in and says did we know that IQs of Westerners have dropped two points since the last century? He says scientists think it's because the smart ones don't want to reproduce (or are most probably gay) and the less intelligent ones are the ones reproducing, passing on their less than stellar genes. Anyway, this is probably the reason for the rise in mediocrity, and the celebration of mediocrity, whereas intelligence is shunned and ridiculed. This is probably the reason my friends and I were slushied so much in high school. I've been bullied since I was in middle school actually. I was bullied for being smart. So I hid it. Pretended I was a bitch. Pretended I hated everyone. Got the token jock boyfriend. Santana had been the same. She hid who she was. Pretended to be what she wasn't. Pretended she wasn't that smart. Pretended she was straight. But the problem with lies is - you start believing them.

And I started to believe in my own lies. And I started getting confused. Till I don't know anymore what is right and what isn't.

Anyway, I know a few words from other languages, but that's it. I've tried learning Spanish and French and German, but then I got pregnant and life got in the way, and I never found the time again.

Perhaps one of the reasons I initially liked Jeffrey was because he spoke German and regaled me for hours on end with untranslatable German words like "Schadenfreude" that fascinated me to no end. "Angst" by the way, means "_an acute but unspecific sense of anxiety or remorse"_ and that in Existentialist philosophy, _"the dread caused by man's awareness that his (or her) future is not determined, but must be freely chosen"._ I look up Existential philosophy and it means _"A body of philosophical doctrine that dramatically emphasizes the contrast between human existence and the kind of existence possessed by natural objects. Men, endowed with will and consciousness, find themselves in an alien world of objects which have neither."_

Dread.

That's what it was. That's what it _is_.

It's what perfectly describes my feeling.

Dread in the middle of the night.

Dread when I wake up in the morning.

Dread before I sleep.

Dread at the facility as I quit cold turkey, experiencing the excruciating pain of the left side of my body in all its full, unmedicated glory, and it is hard at first, as I sweat and feel chills and go around the building lashing out at attendants and at the therapist and at the other people during group therapy and smoking a pack a day of cigarettes the first few days because I couldn't get my painkillers and I couldn't get a drink either and I'd sit in my room, feeling dread and anxiety and panic because I thought I couldn't get through it.

Dread.

When I see Beth Corcoran, the child I gave away barely seconds after I'd given birth to her, it is dread that I feel.

Mostly I feel dread that day because of all the things I feel: fear, anxiety, shame, embarrassment, guilt, I feel this feeling of dreadful inadequacy, this feeling that I don't deserve to have this child seek me out to get to know me, because I gave her away when I was sixteen and I wasn't worth all that trouble.

* * *

_**A/N: Acknowledgements to Kierkegaard and yahoo news dot com for additional information. I love Kierkegaard, so.**_

_**I know a lot of you might be surprised to read my take on Quinn's character - but she studied in Yale (unless Season 5 and 6 screw that up) and I think that would inform how she thinks as well. **_


	3. Chapter 3

My phone buzzes now. I check the message and I find that it is Rachel, texting from Santana's phone, informing me that they have arrived, that they are just looking for parking just a few yards away. Rachel , being Rachel, has told me, she and Blue are arguing over something or other and after much haggling she and Santana have agreed on a trip to Legoland and cookies. She tells me they are looking for a parking spot now.

I smile.

I decide to leave the church now, and as I do, I feel my heels click against the tiles and I feel a bit self-conscious, as the sound echoes in the church. The others though don't seem to mind, as they concentrate on their prayers.

It is spring and a bit cold and I feel the ache in my leg as I limp outside. As I step outside, into a bright spring afternoon, I feel the spring breeze rustle the leaves of the trees and bushes that surround the church yard, encompassed by a low, iron fence.

* * *

Santana has always been there for me. Well, almost always. Most times I tried to stay away from people, shunned their help, believing I was impervious to all that. Chalk it up to youthful arrogance and this misguided notion that I knew it all and therefore did not need anyone's help.

I had not told anyone, least of all my family and friends, where I was. American society had an aversion to mental illness, and an even more aversion to people confronting it, treating it, checking themselves into mental health facilities to get better. In fact, there is a stigma permanently attached to mental illness that I'd rather not go into, but suffice it to say that probably one of the reasons we've been having gun-toting psychopaths getting guns and gunning people down is because we don't have enough health care facilities to treat them. In fact, we've been closing down our mental health facilities, and leaving our mentally impaired brethren in the care of our less than capable relatives or strangers or institutions which are incapable of helping them.

So I never told anyone where I had gone to.

Not until I had to anyway.

Which was what the family therapy was for, when Dr. Spacey told me it was time to start talking to family members and friends.

The talking to family members was going to be hard.

So I start with friends first.

Except there wasn't anyone I wanted to talk to.

But then, I go over my contacts on my email address book and find Brittany S. Pierce's number. So I call her first. I don't really know what possesses me to call her. There didn't seem any need to apologize to _her_, of all people, but I hadn't been particularly nice to Santana's girlfriend anyway, and I did actually come on to her girlfriend (technically ex-girlfriend, at that time), although I don't bring that up ever and it's one of those things Santana and I never bring up and only bring up when we are alone. But I do talk to her, and manage to do a kind of round-about apology that Brittany is genuinely puzzled by. She'd actually already skipped college then, and had moved to California and was doing the whole dance thing and I had actually caught her at the right time, just before she was to head out for rehearsals.

I know I guess I'm supposed to talk to Finn or Puck or something, but my therapist reminds me I don't have to forgive them, and I shouldn't expect them to forgive me either, but what is important is being able to accept what's happened, being able to move past it, beyond it, being able to move on and start a new life. But I didn't think I could talk to Finn or Puck yet, or hell even my parents, or my sister, so I decide to talk to Santana instead, talk about and apologize about how much I've hurt her, betrayed her, and maybe talk about what happened that night Ms. Pillsbury ditched Mr. Schuester at the altar, but it takes me days to actually call her.

But I needn't have bothered.

A few days later, one of the staff surprise me by saying I have a visitor, who, as she describes him or her, "Hot, really hot, like, this lady could turn me, and if you turn out to be gay, Quinn, I'll understand why" which leaves me wondering, but as I go to the visitor's lounge, I see Santana Lopez, the one person I least expect to come is Santana Lopez. Santana Lopez, who has been my frenemy for as long as I can remember, who hated my guts as much as I hated hers, the same one who would destroy me if she ever had a chance, is in one of the chairs, looking worried and upset at how I look. She looks a little exhausted, eyes bloodshot, as she gives me a strained, almost awkward smile.

"Hey," she tells me, as I take a seat in front of her, and we look at each other for what seems like forever, in which I wonder how Santana even knows that I am here - but then I remember Brittany, Brittany, who's always been the quiet middle person who made sure we didn't kill each other must have known.

There is silence between us, before Santana is able to speak and she, "What the fuck, Q? What the hell did you do?" Because of course that is what Santana would say.

* * *

Across the church yard I can see the café, across the street and it affords me a good view of it. I squint my eyes to try to see if the person I'm supposed to meet is already there, but I find no one resembling said person and I'm a mixture of relief and sadness that the place is half-empty. Maybe she won't show up. I am already pretty sure Santana would be none too happy at having been dragged away from a very precious weekend she could be spending with her family to come here, to keep me company, only to find the person I am supposed to meet is not here. I feel disappointed at the prospect.

Santana visits me in the center now and then, when she has the time. She never complains about the long train ride when she comes for the weekend whenever she's free, which is few and far between, and when she is at the center, sometimes she apologizes and says she has to do homework. Invariably it is some math or science related homework, Calculus or Physics or something and I end up rolling my eyes and helping her with homework.

Dr. Spacey and I continue our sessions at this time. She says my depression probably has something to do with having some childhood adversity or having come from a highly conflictual family, the injuries I sustained from the accident and a long and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder. I refuse medication - because that's how I got into this mess in the first place, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get off them once I start and so Dr. Spacey agrees on a cocktail combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, family-focused therapy, and psychoeducation and some interpersonal and social rhythm therapy. I'd actually had a support group as well, that I formed in the center and I regularly go to these meetings to talk about my depression.

I was apprehensive and nervous about the sessions with my family. My father thinks therapy is bullshit, my mother thinks it's unnecessary, my sister doesn't care either way. The first few sessions have my father trembling with anger, refusing to believe he had anything to do with my depression. My mother spends the sessions crying and upset and silent, cowering on one side of the room. There are times she doesn't even come. My sister doesn't come. Santana comes though, to the sessions, whether it was necessary or not. I am forever grateful to her for that, providing a break from the awkwardness and volatility of having the whole family there. But then my mother continues to come, and we end up spending a whole lot of time together. For a while I think it would never get better. But it does. It slowly does.

Gradually, I need Dr. Spacey and the center less and less, and though it was hard at first to live without painkillers or some form of medication and it takes me at least a year or so to get back on my feet, I haven't had a relapse since. Sure I had episodes, but they were manageable, and once I start feeling the depression coming, I start doing breathing exercises, consciously thinking about happy thoughts, take a walk. I occasionally saw Dr. Spacey, but when she moved away, I realized it was time to do it on my own. I even started going to church again.

I once see Puck again. And Finn. A few Christmases ago. I don't remember now. I think a party with the other former Glee members. I try to talk to Puck then, but Puck only smiles, looks at me, says, "It's fine, Quinn." Later, Puck calls me first, about Beth trying to contact him and we are silent on the opposite sides of the line, not knowing what to say to each other. I'd tried to talk to Finn, too, but he'd been intoxicated then and at any rate, it didn't seem like a big deal anymore.

* * *

That party was the first time I see Santana, too, after Brittany's death.

It had been Brittany's illness and subsequent death, finally, that was the last push I needed to get my life back on track.

Brittany had called me, told me about it. There was no remorse in her voice when she called me, no regret, no sadness. She was very brave. When I was at the hospital, she'd let Santana go off to buy coffee for me, and when Santana is gone, she'd hold my hand, look straight in my eyes, and say, "I don't think I'm going to make it, Q. It hurts so bad sometimes I can't take it, and sometimes I think when I sleep I'm not going to make it to another day. But I do. And I guess that makes each new day special - because I literally feel like it's going to be my last." I don't know then, but tears form in my eyes. She starts to shake her head then. "Don't cry. I'm tired, Q. I'm really tired. I think it's not going to be bad…dying. I don't think I'm afraid of it. Or worried. I'm more worried about Santana really. I don't think she's going to make it." As I start to cry, Brittany holds my hand then and says, "You've got to take care of each other, Q. Make sure she's okay. Look out for Suzie, too, will you? Make sure she's okay? Make sure they're happy?" There is a lump that's forming in my throat and I swallow, unable to speak and so I only nod and the tears come down my face, unbidden. "Did I ever tell you how awesome you are?" Brittany says now, with a smile. "I wonder if there are cats in heaven…Do you think I'm going to see Lord Tubbington?" Despite myself, I smile.

When she dies, it devastates Santana and Suzie. It almost kills Santana.

Santana had looked then like she had lost the fight. It must have felt a bit like when I almost lost my legs, like when I gave Beth up for adoption. I had felt like I was half a person then, incomplete without my legs, my child. And half a person isn't a complete person. I know that must have been what Santana had felt. Like she's lost her legs. Or her child. A part of her gone forever. And that's' probably why Brittany had asked me specifically to take care of Santana - she knew that of all the friends Santana had, I would be the only one who would understand what Santana is going through. I don't think Brittany had ever felt jealous of our friendship.

When she dies, I didn't know how to feel about it either. And I had the sudden urge to take as many painkillers and Valium and Prozac and Xanax as I can, to make the pain go away. There were nights when I couldn't sleep and I'd wake up crying. And Jeffrey would be there, patiently holding me, calming me, telling me it was going to be alright. I wanted to make the pain go away, in the quickest, most efficient way possible, but I'd also promised Brittany I'd look out for Santana and Suzie, make sure they were okay, and that didn't leave room for anything else. I'd also promised Brittany I would live every day like it was my last, and I'd been keeping that promise every time.

* * *

In the distance, I see Santana and Rachel, with Blue between them, Rachel holding Blue's left hand as Santana holds Blue's right hand. Blue is wearing overalls and a jacket and sneakers and the couple are wearing casual clothes today, both of them wearing jeans, blouses and jackets. Blue is currently enjoying swinging herself between her parents and I see Rachel and Santana smile and laugh as they look at their daughter having mindless fun with a simple little action. For a few meters, Blue repeats this, before she gets tired and stops and pulls at her mothers, and Santana only grins, says something and I see Rachel smile back, before she leans over and kisses Santana briefly on the lips. Santana pulls back smiling. I've never seen Santana this happy and as I watch them, I realize how happy I am for both her and Rachel.

I look towards the café again, and I see that the café is still empty. Is she ever coming, I wonder. What would I do if she didn't show up? The first meeting was a disaster, the second equally a failure.

"Hey, Q," a voice to my left interrupts my thoughts and I see Santana, holding Blue in her arms, with Rachel in tow, her hand lightly holding Santana. Rachel gives me her trademark megawatt smile.

"Hey," I say.

"Hi, Aunt Q!" Blue yells now, putting her little pudgy arms out for me in a gesture that indicates she wants to be carried and hugged. I smile and put my arms out in turn and Santana gratefully hands her over.

"Ugh, thank god," Santana says now, shaking her arms. "Seriously, sweetie, you're getting too old to be carried around."

I grunt. "You're so heavy now, Blue," I murmur as I hold her and she wraps her arms around my neck.

"Can you hear it, Auntie Q?" Blue asks now.

"What, sweetie?" I ask.

Blue leans over and whispers, "I'm growing."

I lean back, look at her and smile. "I can see that, sweetie."

Blue hugs me again and says, "We've missed you, Auntie Q!"

"I've missed you too, sweetie," I say now. Santana and Rachel nod and smile and I nod back at them. "What have you been up to?"

"Singing!" Blue says now. Then she starts to half-sing, half-shout in her very out-of-tune voice,_ "Toniiight! We are yum! So let's set the wood on fire! We can cook 'em right up! Venison!"_

It takes me a second to figure out what she's singing, which was Fun's "We are Young" and when I do, I start to laugh before I say, "Venison? Where do you get these words? Honey, I don't think those are the lyrics to the song."

"_Weally?_" Blue asks now, visibly disappointed.

I nod. "Really."

"Aaww!" Blue says now, dejected. Then her eyes light up as she says, "I've got another one for you, though, Auntie Q!" and before I can say anything, she starts to sing, "_Hold me close, Tony Danza!_"

I recognize the song as Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" and I resist the urge to smile. I look at her. "How do you even know Tony Danza?"

Santana rolls her eyes. "Sam. And Sesame Street."

"Ah," I say. "That makes sense."

"As much as I really want him to _not_ be in our lives he's kind of just…_around_," Santana says now and Rachel hits her on the arm. "Ow!"

I smile. "I see this one inherited your very nice singing voices."

"Mommy says Uncle Sam is a goober!" Blue shouts now.

I smile. "Goober?" I look at Santana and smirk. "Who calls anyone goober anymore? Santana, the 1950s called, they want your swear-word back."

Santana blushes. "I…Rach is on a campaign to clean up my language in front of Blue so…What the f…fruit, right?"

"What the fruit!" Blue says now.

Rachel glares at Santana. Santana grins. "Just kidding babe!"

In a few seconds, I see Suzie in jeans, jacket and boots, with her girlfriend, Kate, beside her. Kate's hand is hooked in Suzie's arm. Suzie, tall and beautiful and blonde and full of promise, her whole youth, her _life_, still before her. Suzie is everything we are not, well-rounded and well-adjusted and perfect, the best of Brittany and Santana and Rachel all combined into one young woman - all their hopes and dreams and wishes in her. And Blue - well, I already know Blue will grow up with her parents' feistiness and resilience, determination and spunk, guts and brains. I already know because I can see much of Santana and Rachel shining through in the child, made more so by the fact that she isn't like the other children, all normal and ordinary. Blue has to wear a hearing aid and glasses, is prone to asthma attacks and other childhood illnesses, but I already know Blue will work harder than most to prove that she can do as well as the next child who was born healthy and normal and complete.

Anyway, when Suzie and Kate see us, they wave and Blue spots them and she yells, "Zie-zie!" Suzie grins and picks up the pace and they are in the church yard in a few seconds.

"Hey, you guys!" Suzie says, moving to kiss Santana and Rachel. Kate does the same.

"Hey, Aunt Q!" Suzie says to me now, grinning. I smile back and hand Blue to her. "What's up?"

"Ugh, Blue, aren't you too old to be carried?" Suzie tells her now as she carries the child and gives her a hug.

"Am not!" Blue says now.

"Are, too!" Suzie says.

"Am not!" Blue says now, indignant. "I'm only _thix_!"

Suzie looks at her now. "Oh yeah? Show me what six is."

Blue looks at her, confused, before she holds up five fingers.

Suzie laughs. "Sweetie, that's _five_. Not _thix_."

Blue adds an extra finger to her five fingers and Suzie laughs. "Good girl. I thought that school was teaching you crap or something…"

Blue gives her a shocked face before she says, "You said a bad word! I'm gonna tell!"

Suzie laughs.

"Suzie!" Rachel says now as Santana only smirks.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," Suzie says now.

Blue tells Suzie, "Mommy Way-chel wants me to go to school, Zie-zie. But I don't wanna go to school." She punctuates this with a vigorous shake of the head. "My _theat_mate _thmellth_ weird.

Rachel says, "You can learn a lot of awesome stuff at school."

Blue says, "I can learn _awethome_ stuff from Uncle _Tham_ and Zie-zie. Did you know the human head _weighth_ 8 pounds?"

"I did not know that," Suzie says. She turns to Kate and asks, "Did you know that?" to which Kate shakes her head.

Blue says, "D'you know that _beeth_ and _dogth_ can _thmell_ fear?"

Suzie grins and says, "Did you know that lightning is five time shotter than the sun's surface?"

Blue replies with, "Did you know _crocodileth_ can't _thweat_? So they kind of just open up their mouths like this…" and Blue opens her mouth wide much to the amusement of the adults.

Suzie says, "Did you know rabbits are born blind?"

Blue looks to Rachel and asks, "Cool! Can we have _rabbitth_, Mama?"

Rachel says, "No. And no, we can't have rabbits. You wanted a dog and a parrot, and you barely take care of those. A rabbit is pretty much the same. That's a lot of responsibility, honey."

Blue makes a face and says, "Aaww, bummer. Can we have an _othtrich_ instead? Did you know an _othtrich'th _eye _ith_ bigger than _itth_ brain?"

Rachel matter-of-factly says, "No," before she turns to me and says, "Okay, let's get this party started."

"Wow, you guys brought the whole neighborhood," I comment now.

"No, we did not, Quinn," Rachel says indignantly now. "Although we do apologize for that. Suzie invited herself and…"

"I hope you don't mind, Aunt Q," Suzie says now.

"It's fine," I say.

As they start chatting to each other, I spot two women walking across the street, on the sidewalk, making their way to the café. It's really hard to miss who they are, even from this distance. Despite myself my heart starts to beat fast and I feel my hands grow clammy as I look at them. It's Shelby. And Beth. Together. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was nervous and couldn't deal with meeting the other alone. Except I have Santana, Rachel, Suzie, Kate and Blue with me and Beth only has Shelby. Shelby looks good, if not older, hair still long and dark. She is wearing a dark coat and a dress, while Beth is wearing jeans and a jacket and boots, much like Suzie.

Suzie must have noticed me staring because she leans over and says, "_Wow_, is that her?"

I look at Suzie now and say, half-jokingly, "_Suzie_, she's my daughter, _eeww_…and you're sort of fake-related or something, _gross_. And your girlfriend is right _here_."

Suzie blushes. "Aunt Q, eeww, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, wow, she's like a mini-you."

I smile and nod.

"Well, let's get this over with then," I say.

"I seriously don't think you need us," Santana comments now, voice soft and low, so as to not let Suzie, Kate and Blue hear. "You've met her twice already. I don't think anything bad's going to happen now."

"I don't know…" I say.

"Third time's the charm," Santana says now, smiling.

Before we cross the street, Santana moves to squeeze my hand and Rachel gives me an encouraging smile and we all cross the street together and meet Beth and Shelby Corcoran.

* * *

I don't know how it happens, but instead of all of us having coffee at the café, we all end up at the park, at the children's playground, where Rachel is currently telling Blue how to behave amongst the other children. It's a cool, clear, crisp day to play in the park and Blue, face flushed and excited, waits impatiently as Rachel talks to her. I am surprised at how good a mother Rachel has turned out to be. No one would have guessed from how she was in high school that Rachel would turn out not only to be a good wife and a good mother. In fact, she had always been in the running for world's most selfish, self-centered and self-absorbed diva. It's fun to watch her being the doting mom and wife now. Earlier, when everyone had ordered their coffee - Santana had ordered cappuccino and Rachel the non-fat latte, Rachel had surreptitiously and automatically wiped the froth that formed on Santana's upper lip and nose, smiling lovingly as she does so. Santana had smiled back shyly.

I can hear Rachel talking to Blue now. It's next to impossible not to hear the conversation, even a few yards away.

I could hear Rachel saying, "And what do we do with our juice box?"

"We don't aim it at the other kid's face and squeeze as hard as we can," Blue says now.

"And…?" Rachel continues.

"We don't kick them in the nuts afterwards," Blue says.

"What do we do when we're playing in the sandbox and need to go pee-pee?" Rachel asks.

"We don't pee in the _thand_ box," Blue says matter-of-factly.

I can see Santana, Suzie and Kate grinning in amusement at Rachel and Blue's conversation. I see Rachel catching Santana grinning so she turns and glares at Santana, effectively wiping the grin off of Santana's face.

"Well, don't just stand there," Rachel says now, which sets off the couple into some light bickering, which, judging from how naturally their children accept this as a natural state of affairs, seem to be a natural occurrence.

"And what do we do with the dirt or mud or grass that gets on our hands?" Rachel continues.

"We don't wipe our hands on other's people's faces," Blue says now. "Or other people's clothes."

"We don't…?" Rachel prompts.

"Force the other kids to eat them," Blue says now.

"Or…?"

"Put them in other people's noses," Blue recites, mechanically, as if they have gone over this over and over again. "Or ears."

"Or other holes," Rachel says now. "Just to see if they fit or not. Like you did last time. And we don't use sand, stone, grass, crayons as weapons when other people upset us. Or make fun of us. Like you did last time."

"Okay, mommy," Blue says, pushing up her glasses with an innocent smile on her face.

"And we don't scream 'No touching' many, many times just to embarrass the mommies, okay?" Rachel says now.

Blue nods. Rachel fixes her shirt, overalls and jacket, brushes some imaginary dirt from her clothes, before she says, "Okay, go have fun. We'll just be here." As Blue skips to the playground, Rachel shouts, "Behave, Blue! Behave!"

As Rachel moves off to stand by Santana's side, Santana automatically puts an arm around Rachel and Rachel leans her head on Santana's shoulder. Santana leans her head over Rachel's as well.

I cannot help but smile at the sight.

I watch them as Suzie lays out a blanket and the five, Rachel, Santana, Suzie and Kate, with Shelby Corcoran, sit on the blanket, sipping their coffees.

Suzie and Blue have charmed Shelby Corcoran to no end. She seems completely taken by Blue, who, the first time she sees Shelby, gasps and says, in awe, "Wow, you look like Mommy Waychel…Are you my Mommy's mommy? Are you my granma?" which seems to charm Shelby and makes her smile as she looks at Rachel and asks, "And who might this be?"

Rachel smiles at her and says, "My daughter." She looks at Santana, then back to Shelby and says, "Our daughter, Blue. Blue, this is Miss Shelby Corcoran."

"Blue, nice to meet you," Shelby says now, looking at the child. The child looks at her and smiles shyly, as Shelby says, "That's a funny name, Blue."

"No, it's not!" Blue blurts out before either moms can stop her.

"Blue," Rachel chides her now.

"But Mommy, it's not a funny name," Blue insists now. Then she looks at Shelby and says, "My real name is Sarah Elizabeth Blue. Zie-zie gave me my name, Blue. I like my name. It's a cool name."

Shelby only smiles. "Zie-zie?"

Rachel smiles. "You remember our other daughter, Suzie?"

Shelby peers at the tall young woman standing behind Santana and she smiles. "Yes, I seem to remember a nice young lady by that name. Though you were smaller then."

Suzie smiles as shyly at Shelby as she waves at the older woman. Rachel says, "And this is Kate."

Shelby smiles in acknowledgement. "Nice to meet you, Kate."

When the family decides to go to the park, at the request of Blue, on pain of a temper tantrum that Rachel and Santana would rather not have to go through. As they decide to go, Shelby says, "Maybe I should join you. I'd love to know what you have been up to since I last saw you."

"Do you want me to sing, Miss _Cowcowan_?" Blue says now. "I can sing a song for you. I learned it from Sesame Street." Before Shelby can actually say anything, Blue starts singing, "_Letter B, letter B, letter B, letter B…the next letter that follows is letter C…hee…_Who's your favorite character on Sesame Street? Mine is Vincent Twice, Vincent Twice…and maybe Elmo…and Big Bird…and Mr. Snufflapagus…and maybe Oscar the Grouch…"

Beth decides right then and there that we should follow them.

I guess she didn't want to be alone with me.

* * *

We sit on the lawn watching the others a few yards away.

I sit across from Beth now, who is fidgeting with her drink, a cappuccino and with the other one, fidget with the hem of her shirt. I notice this is a nervous habit of hers. Her fingers are long, elegant, tapering, fingernails immaculately clean. She runs a hand on her hair, dark, blonde, long and straight, like mine was when I was in high school. She really does look beautiful. She looks like me.

I've attempted to ask the perfunctory questions, mundane things, like how old she is now, did she finish college, what did she major in, is she working, and so on. I am careful about asking her too personal questions. She seems nervous enough as it is. As I am.

As Beth and I watch them all a distance away, Beth suddenly says, "Blue's lovely…"

I nod. "Yeah, she is." As I look at them, I say, "Funnily enough, we almost thought we'd lose her when she was born."

"Yeah?"

I look at Beth. "Yeah. She got sick when she was born. She was born prematurely. During a snowstorm. And there was no power and the ambulance was stuck somewhere and they got to the hospital on a truck with a snowplow and I don't know, I think there was some intense singing in the truck and Rachel was in labor the whole night…and Blue got sick after and we thought she wouldn't make it for Christmas…but she did…"

"I thought Rachel's Jewish," Beth says now. "I mean…Mom's Jewish…so…"

"Yeah, she is," I say, "But she married someone who wasn't Jewish, so they've kind of compromised on the holidays. They do Hannukah and Christmas together and stuff like that."

There is silence again.

"Did it take you the whole night too? When you had me?" Beth asks now.

I smile, remembering that time. "Did Shelby tell you what we used to do in high school? How we all met?"

Beth shakes her head.

"Rachel, Santana and I were in Glee Club together," I explain. "Shelby used to be the adviser of a rival Glee Club. Glee Club competitions could get pretty intense and the rivalry could get really ugly. I was pregnant with you when we were competing. I think it was Regionals or Sectionals or something. I went into labor right after our performance. Most of the Glee Club went to the hospital with me. It was a tough labor. It was hard. It was painful. But then you came out and everything felt like it was going to be alright."

I look at her now. "You were such a beautiful, quiet baby. So beautiful. I remember looking at you and marveling at how I could have created something as beautiful and perfect as you were. You were.._amazing_."

Beth is quiet now.

"Then why did you give me up?" she suddenly blurts out.

I sigh. "Beth…I was young…I was sixteen…I had no job, no degree…nothing. I couldn't give you the right future even if I tried. I had to make a choice. It wasn't the right choice at the time, maybe, but it was the best choice at the time, and though I missed you every single day and regretted giving you up, I still think I made the right decision, because Shelby could give you, gave you, the life I couldn't have given you then."

Beth is silent, unable to say anything. There is a hurt look on her face that I can't look at so I avert my gaze, bite my lower lip and look away. I watch the distant trees, the people walking in twos or threes, with their kids, kids playing, laughing, skipping, generally just enjoying cool weather on a lazy afternoon.

There is a silence that stretches between us. A silence that's so deafening as to be almost uncomfortable and awkward.

If truth be told, I hadn't expected the fully grown daughter I gave up a few years ago to come into my life like this, asking me questions to which I still wouldn't know the answer to. Sure, I had thought about a lot of things between the time I had found out I was pregnant to the time I gave Beth up for adoption to the time I tried to get her back. I'd thought about whether it ever was the right decision to give her up. But I was young, and this kind of question is never something you actually entertain for too long a time. It could drive you nuts.

I remember my therapist again - telling me I needed to talk to the family and friends I'd wronged, I remember her telling me this like it was yesterday. I remember her telling me this and me feeling furious, because I'd felt like she was this complete stranger, this condescending, pretentious bitch who thought she knew what I'd been through, who sat through each session with me, face impassive, emotion detached, asking me questions, never actually pushing me to offer anymore, until one day when I'd lashed out at her and told her, "This is ridiculous. I can't be paying you a shitload of money so you can just sit there telling me, 'I see' and 'How do you feel about that?'" My therapist had just stared at me, pushing back wisps of grey-white hair away from her face with an overly pale, veined hand before she smiles patiently at me and says, "That's because you never tell me anything, Quinn. What was your childhood like? What was your family like? Can you tell me about this young Beth that you gave away when you were sixteen?"

I don't know but when she mentions Beth, there is this feeling deep within me, like someone has seized my heart, squeezed it and threw it away and I feel like I can't breathe and the tears come to my eyes and before I know it, I am crying, sobbing and the therapist pushes a box of Kleenex infront of me, smiling and nodding, not offering anything, a quiet witness to my breakdown, to my admission that not everything is okay, that I'm not okay, that I've been pretending to be okay my whole life and filling in the void, the emptiness with something. She hadn't judged or said anything, she just listened as I started to talk about my guilt, my anxiety, my nightmares, my regrets, my fears and doubts and confusion, all centered around Beth, about how I'd never really come to terms with having been pregnant at sixteen, giving away the child not soon after, having been stigmatized, ostracized and _shamed_ for both, having no one to turn to or talk to. See, the thing is, I never really got over the guilt of having given Beth away, of having been foolish enough to get knocked up in the first place, and bring Beth into the world like this.

I look at Beth now and I can sense it - that feeling of being unwanted, of being rejected, a feeling I've felt a number of times myself. Looking at her, is like looking at myself, looking at myself reflected in her eyes, younger, more vulnerable, innocent, her life still before her, the possibilities endless, boundless.

I wish I could make all that hurt, that pain I see in Beth's eyes go away, but I guess part of all of this is confronting all that in the first place, acknowledging I'd made mistakes, acknowledging and accepting and moving on. My therapist has told me then that it was okay to let go of all that past hurt, all that past pain, I was young, I was sixteen, she says, I didn't actually have a fully formed concept of what motherhood meant, what it entailed. I was a child myself. She had been the one who had told me, it might not have been the best thing to do at the time, but it was the right thing to do, for Beth's sake, and mine.

Beth is only silent now, and I feel like I would die from all the silence. I've never been good with silence. I fill silence with sound, with music, with sex, with empty couplings and relationships. It took me a while to realize silence can be good, solitude is good, and it's been very good for me, these past few years, to find time for myself, to fill the silence with silence, to look deep within me and find that elusive peace I'd been looking for.

But this panic takes hold of me again. This panic and anxiety. Because Beth is beginning to gather her things, her backpack, her coffee, and she's muttering, "This was a mistake…"

And I don't know what to do as I watch her get up off the lawn and so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, "I tried to get you back once."

Beth stops, eyebrows knitting, eyes sharp and suspicious as she looks at me, slowly lowers herself on the lawn, sits before me and says, "What?"

I repeat it even though I don't like being reminded of that as well. "I tried to get you back once. In high school. Before I graduated."

There is a silence, at first, during which I can literally feel the gears in Beth's mind turning, wondering what appropriate thing to say to this. "What happened?" she finally asks.

I shrug, not knowing what to say myself. "Nothing. I kind of nearly got your mother in trouble doing it. I don't know if she's told you about it, or if she remembers it, or has forgiven me for it, but I imagine that gave her a scare, to say the least."

Beth is silent, mulling this over. Then she speaks up. "She's a wonderful mom."

I nod, knowing this to be true. Shelby was the mom I could never be for Beth.

"I bet you're a wonderful parent, too," Beth says now, hesitantly.

I shake my head, shrug my shoulders and say, "Oh, I don't know about that. I think Jeffrey does a better job of being a parent more than I do."

"Is that…is that your husband?" Beth asks, faltering towards the last part of the question.

I nod.

"I…I saw some old pictures of…Noah Puckerman? My father?" Beth says now. Beth must have seen the questioning look in my eyes because she rushes to explain, "Mom has this high school yearbook, and she pointed you out to me…you and Puck and Finn and the rest of the Glee Club members."

I nod, not knowing what else to say, so Beth says, "They look really good-looking."

I smile. "That they are."

We sit in companionable silence for a while before the voice of the Supremes, singing "Baby Love", announces that there is a message. She answers the phone and I try to tune her conversation out as I watch Rachel and Santana with the others just chatting and laughing.

When Beth is finished talking on the phone, she smiles at me and I smile at her.

"You like the Supremes?" I ask by way of conversation.

She nods, shyly, sheepishly putting away her mobile phone. "Yeah. My friends tease me about it. They think I'm a bit dork for liking old timey stuff, like Motown and LPs and handwritten letters and stuff like that, but yeah…I think Motown is cool." When I don't say anything, she takes out her phone again, and says, "I should change my ringtone really. It's a bit old-fashioned and stuff, I know…"

I reach my hand out, put it on her arm, shake my head and say, "No, it's fine. I love the Supremes."

"You do?" Beth asks, so earnestly that I can't help but smile and nod.

Beth sighs, relieves, almost as if she's relieved we have something more in common other than shared DNA, blonde hair and eyes.

"Yes," I continue, "I loved the classics, Marvin Gaye, The Bandellas, Otis Redding, The Four Tops, The Foundation, The Temptation, Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Fontella Bass…"

Beth looks at me in awe. "Wow…that's pretty _awesome_…"

I smile. "Yes, I got a quite a bit of crap in high school too for being a white girl who loved black music a little bit too much."

Beth smiles. "Yes, I was that white girl, too."

I grin. "Well, there you go then." She smiles at this and I say, unsure of myself, "Beth…I…I'm not perfect…I'm still trying to figure out my life…I'm still learning a lot of things…Even now…and I know I didn't treat you right…And for that I am sorry. I know no amount of apology will ever make it all better…but maybe we can at least try? Maybe we can start over? I mean you being here must mean you at least want to try again." I smile uncertainly at her. "Maybe this is worth a shot?"

Beth considers this for a long time, looking at me, unsure, before she says, "Okay."

"Okay," I say.

Beth nods back. "Okay."

We spend the rest of the day chatting. Frankly I don't exactly remember what else we talked about, I do remember realizing that we have a lot in common than we'd ever realized.

* * *

We have just finished dinner. Rachel had cooked dinner for everyone, and is now giving Blue, their younger daughter, a bath, and is probably putting her to sleep now, reading her a story and singing to her, as I am wont to do. Suzie is spending the night at the house, with Kate and has decided to retreat to her room after having put Blue to bed and both have probably fallen asleep, tired from work and everything else in between. Santana and Rachel have convinced me to stay the night at their Brooklyn home and no amount of protesting from me, could make them stop.

Santana and Rachel know better now than to ask how the day went with Beth. Instead, Rachel starts to chatter on about mundane things, asks how I am, what I'd been up to, skirting the issue of Beth as as Santana offers me some wine.

I watch Santana as the other woman pours more wine in her wine glass. I watch the golden liquid swirl around in her glass, watch the glass catch the overhead light, going through my wine glass, emerging on the other side like a prism, shade and sparkle and shine. Santana is intent on pouring the wine in her glass and when I finish, I allow myself another glass of wine as well and when her glass is filled, I set the bottle of wine down, look up at her, and grin. Santana then lifts up her glass in a toast, raises an eyebrow and starts to sip her wine. I raise my own glass and take a dainty sip as well. For a time as we sip their wine, we are silent, just enjoying each other's company.

As I take in their kitchen, I find that their kitchen looks nice, homey, comfortable, a proper family kitchen. I already know Rachel has probably spent hours, nay, months just to get this kitchen right and I can see it from how proudly Rachel seems to be, moving about in her kitchen.

Rachel is drinking some tea and offers a plate of cookies as we all sit in companionable silence, before Rachel smiles an awkward smile, tilts her head and asks me, "So…how was it?"

I look at Rachel now, not knowing what to say at Rachel's very frank and straightforward question. I debate the wisdom of lying to Rachel Berry, but decide it's too much of a bother, because I'm too tired and agitated as it is, and so I take a deep breath, shrug and say, "It was better than I expected."

And as I consider this thought for a few moments, I realize that it _was_ better than I expected. I do not know what the future will bring, but at least I know that the present is better and the past is over and done with.

After all, Beth and I parted with a promise to meet again in a few weeks.

It's not much, but it's a start.

And as I think about this, I realize everything is going to be alright. My life might still not have a happy ending, but it's getting there.

Life is a work in progress after all.

* * *

_**A/N: That's it for this story. Apologies for taking so long to update this story. I'd been experiencing a brick wall vis a vis this story, "A Lesser God's Opus" and "Humans Being", and had been on this streak of finishing stories one story at a time. But since the Pitch sequel "Music for an Ordinary Time" is almost done, I decided to work on this instead.**_

_**Anyway, as always many thanks to the beta DragonsWillFly for the beta-ing. :)**_

_**Many thanks to everyone else for reading and reviewing. **_

_**Hope you like this story. I don't know if there's any more to tell with Quinn's story, so I guess this is done. Unless the Muse inspires me, or you guys give me some ideas for stories. :) Also, I know the ending might be a bit unsatisfactory for some - but Quinn's story, and her story with Beth, is delicate, and has no easy answers, or definite endings. I wanted an open-ended story vis a vis Quinn's story, because as is mentioned above, life is a work in progress.**_

_**Also, I heard Dianna Agron and her character, Quinn Fabray, is not coming back to "Glee" anymore and so I think this story is a bit apt, is somewhat of a tribute, as it were, to everything that the character was and could have been, in the show.**_

_**Also, R.I.P. Cory Monteith.**_

_**I have no words. Only sadness. I guess the show will never be the same ever again.**_


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